Nashville Predators trade for Nicolas Hague further complicates what the master plan is

Late in the night on Sunday and after the 2025 NHL Entry Draft was completed, the Nashville Predators threw in another unexpected trade to land brute strength to the blueline by acquiring Nicolas Hague from the Vegas Golden Knights.

The trade sends long-beloved Colton Sissons and one of the best hitters in the NHL in Jeremy Lauzon to the Golden Knights. Both were rumored to be on the Predators trade block going into the season, but I'm not sure it was entirely expected that it would happen before the 2025-26 regular season began.

Nashville Predators add some strength to blueline with Nicolas Hague, but is the trade really a net positive?

Hague also gets a four-year, $22 million contract extension with the Predators which brings an AAV of $5.5 million. The trade itself kind of makes sense, but the extension and per year salary is high for a guy who brings very little offense and is going to mostly be a third pairing mainstay.

With Lauzon sent to Vegas, you're essentially swapping him out for Hague. I see that as an even swap at best, and then on top of that you include Sissons in the trade. And while I agree that Sissons should be traded, I don't really see the need to include him in this trade to again just get a third pairing guy who will hit people, clear the zone and block a lot of shots.

I just don't see the net gain in this trade, plus the Predators are losing a small amount of cap space from where they were before the trade. Now they're around $12 million of projected cap space when before the trade for Hague they were approximated two million more in cap space.

Nashville Predators General Manager Barry Trotz told Brooks Bratten of the team's website that Hague will be an "integral part" of the team's future:

" “Shortly after supplying our prospect pipeline with several talented players at this weekend’s NHL Draft, we feel we’ve made our team better and younger with this trade. Nicolas’ profile as a defenseman is one that teams around the NHL covet – big and physical with strong skating ability. By signing him for four years, he will play an integral role in shaping our blueline not only now, but in the future.""

Per Brooks Bratten

This trade is going to increase the uncertainty of what Trotz's master plan is. The team is coming off one of its worst standings performance in their 26-year history and they're trapped into long-term veteran contracts.

Hague is younger at age 26, and you did clear up some roster space among the forwards for the younger core of players to get a chance to make an impact out of training camp this year. So there is that, and Sissons was heading into his final year of his contract so eventually it was going to come down to trading him and hoping you get anything you can out of him.

The Predators projected starting blueline for 2025-26 now that Hague joins the picture and Lauzon is out look like Roman Josi at the top, with his linemate looking to be Justin Barron with the Predators being razor thin on the right side.

That's another thing that's odd about this trade. Hague plays on the left side, and the Predators still haven't addressed their right side depth concerns. As of right now heading into July of the offseason, the Predators have two right shot defenseman listed on their active NHL roster; Barron and Nick Blankenburg.

When you look deeper into the prospect pool, you have Ryan Ufko and Andrew Gibson as right shot defenseman who have a lot of high praise. But are either one of them ready to make the full-time jump to the NHL? Remains to be seen.

And to add the final nail into how uninspiring this trade looks on its surface, the Predators are retaining 50 percent of Sissons' remaining salary. Sure, that's not a lot of money left to begin with, but just another blemish.

It appears to me that Trotz is trying anything he can to keep the Predators competitive in 2025-26 and hope against hope that the veteran core bounces back in a big way from their collective down years last season. That's banking on guys like Steven Stamkos, Jonathan Marchessault, Brady Skjei and Roman Josi to play up to their former standards.

The recent trade acquisition of Erik Haula from the Devils in exchange for prospect Jeremy Hanzel and a fourth-round pick made it easy to move on from Sissons. Haula will now take over that role.

So basically what Trotz has done lately is replace Sissons and Lauzon for Haula and Hague while losing some cap space in the process. At best, this is a break even trade. It doesn't move the needle for me at all on its surface.

Trotz still does have a little money to play around with in free agency, which is tomorrow on July 1 at 12PM ET. I can see Trotz look to add a right shot defenseman to completely fill out his defensive corps. Aaron Ekblad, Nick Perbix and Cody Ceci are just a short list of possibilities.